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How I Skyrocketed My Pinterest Audience from 800 to 8,000 in One Day

Alison Stripling • Jun 06, 2020

The Past

I started in the online marketing space in 2011 and never looked back. I started helping a pilates studio with their marketing, became a “Jill of all trades”, and loved it from the start.

I sought out the teachings of other marketing gurus at the time. Back then before social media exploded on the scene, email list building was really the best to grow an online business. 

I saw other successes and wanted to build an engaged community of my own.

I heard that if you build your email list then it’s something that you own––because let’s face it, we don’t OWN our social media.

And all I did was watch. And subscribe to their lists. And watch. 

I didn’t really work to grow my list even though many successful marketers said that their only regret was that they waited too long to start their list.

The Present

Right now, this blog post comes at a time in history where we're in the COVID-19 quarantine. Since March 17, we in the SF Bay Area, have been in shelter in place with some hope on the horizon. We’ve needed to hit pause for many business, restaurants, and events to come back to life. And RIP to those who've lost loved ones due to the coronavirus, and those who've lost their jobs, lost their businesses, and just plain lost. This is a sore spot for me, too, as I have lost. But that’s a story for another day.

So you’re here to read a Pinterest story, right?

The short of it is that I’m on a quest to build a membership group, build courses, build something...anything...that I can help more people with their online marketing.

I learned early on when I started in graphic design right out of college (called desktop publishing back then) that I could sit at my computer for hours obsessing about colors, formatting, and moving one element pixel by pixel around a page until I’ve exhausted all variations of design. 

Sit for hours...just me and the little screen.

And people? Do I need community in my life? Or do I just need a computer? Lucky for me during this shelter in place order, that my introverted self can exist with my faith, my family, and Zoom for that digital connection when most have grown weary...but not me.

The Future

On May 25 I brainstormed with a friend to start on the path to online marketing world domination. Okay, sure, that’s pretty lofty! But truly, the idea is to start and not stop.

We mapped out more than I thought possible––mainly capturing data, staying active on social with content and engagement, writing blog posts, creating videos, and taking the steps that I tell my clients to do for more online visibility.

And this, of course, is a step in the right direction because even though I’m passionate about community, engagement, and content, I haven't really been focusing on growing Sparq. You’ve heard the excuse, right? The cobbler's kids have no shoes!

In our conversations, my friend and I keep each other accountable as much as we can without annoying one another, and we talk about what’s worked, what’s still left to do, and what ideas transpire when voicing our thoughts.

We ask questions and then answer them together.

And yesterday we even talked about what’s happening in the world today––from rioting and protesting to how we feel about current events. But that's for another post too.

I digress.

And now...Pinterest.

My goal is to help more people and the strategy is to grow my email list and Facebook group. In doing so the tactic is to film videos that teach a specific online marketing task and use a simple content strategy to share them on social media. 

That’s it.


Sparq Marketing | PInterest Growth

My video on Pinterest had the most impressions than any other social media platform that I am active on. I posted a video on Pinterest on Monday, June 1, and by Wednesday evening the analytics showed that I had jumped up 1,076% to a whopping 7,960 monthly visitors (the total number who have seen or engaged with your pin) from 806! 


Sparq Marketing | Pinterest Growth

Some argue that “monthly visitors” or “total audience” is vanity metrics. This is in part because this increase also includes ALL pins, so if I pinned other people’s content, it includes those impressions too. And to this point, I received 6,600 total impressions from my video so there were 1,320 impressions from other people’s content.


Sparq Marketing | Analytics after two days 800 to 8,000 monthly viewers

This monthly visitors metrics gives you “street cred” and is certainly flattering! But it's called vanity metrics because it’s meaningless unless the impressions are generating traffic to your website.

After all, the purpose of pinning is to get more business, right?

Now obviously I want this number to grow. But I’m not going to get caught up in it too much because it should grow if I keep adding the right content for my business. So I should focus on adding the right content. It’s really business as usual with the strategy I have in place.

If the answer is yes to wanting more business and you’re looking to grow Pinterest for your business, let’s talk about how to create content to help you increase your Pinterest impressions 1,076% (at the time of writing this post).

To do this, join my Facebook Community and start asking questions. This helps others in the group as well and you’ll have a direct line of communication to me!

Join my Online Marketing Community
by clicking the link below 
Online Marketing Community
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